Corrie Sanders: best wins and career analysis

I wasn't avoiding your question, I was explaining that you had a false premise so the question was pointless. But to answer your question, I'm honestly not sure. It might every well be better than any of Lewis wins, might depend when they actually fight. Usyk is the same age as Holyfield has been injury prone of late and at some point soon he'll probably be past prime. If it happens soon then yes maybe it would be as good if not better than the Holyfield or Vitali wins. But if Fury ages him out until Usyk has declined enough then no.

I'm not really sure how that answer has any relation to Sander though. Your idea that I just hate southpaws is simply ludicrous.

I'm not pretending anything. You don't like my opinion so for some reason think I have some ulterior motive. I'm being 100% honest. Had Lewis beaten Byrd and Sanders I'd still regard them as I do know if I'm honest. Byrd probably deserved a shot, he was a good fighter, but even his own promoter paid Lewis $1 mill and a car to vacate the belt, because it wasn't a lucrative fight and new Byrd would lose and by making him vacate King could control a portion of the heavyweight title. Sanders quite frankly never deserved a shot, he really only became a serious contender when he beat Wlad and by then Lewis was basically done.

I also only mentioned Lewis because he was the only champion during Sanders reign that I am aware of that ever even named him as a possible opponent. Had nothing to do with me defending Lewis in any way, his record speaks for itself.

Yes some times champions take a easy fight between the tougher fights and yes sure maybe Sanders could of been chosen by Evander or Lewis or any of the others that held major belts during his time, but in the end nobody cared about Sanders. Yes in part why he wasn't chosen is because he was all risk and no reward but that doesn't mean fighters specifically ducked him, they made a sensible business decision.

Guys like Ortiz, Sanders, Hrgovic, these high risk low reward fighters can't expect champions to pick them over more lucrative or more easier opponents, they have to work harder to get that shot. Ortiz and Hrgovic put in the work, remained undefeated and earned a title shot by getting mandatories or in Ortiz's case being recognised as a threat and a fight that fans wanted to see which resulted in Showtime saying Wilder had to fight Ortiz. Sanders simply never got himself into that position, the 2 losses stopped any momentum he had gained and he was very fortunate that Wlad picked him for that title defence because without that win he wouldn't have even have the foot note he has in boxing history.

 

Sure buddy. You know everything, everybody else is delusional, moving the goalpost, dishonest, a liar, not addressing your points and all. That's just a few of the emotional statements you've made while people sacrificed their time to debate, educate, and exchange information.

Completely ignore Lewis not being shaped by Steward yet for the first against McCall, and looking past Rahman, coming unprepared, and the fact that he brutally avenged both losses. Completely ignore the fact that Lewis ran over the entire division while Sanders was busy losing to Tubbs and Rahman—all the while SPECULATING he was avoided, despite him blowing up one of his very few attempts at a step up, and being notoriously not invested in boxing.

Lennox Lewis beat Holyfield THREE YEARS before Byrd did. He beat him coming off of two Tyson wins, and revenge demolition of Moorer. Byrd got way him way later after he was already struggling with Ruiz, and there is nothing to suggest he would not get dominated by Lewis like he was against Ibeabuchi and Klitschko—the fact about his career that you seem to repeatedly push out of your fragile mind every second post, much like Sanders being stopped Tubbs and Rahman. Vitali retires on his stool due to an injury while ahead on the cards—bad. Byrd gets sparked and spanked by Ibeabuchi, Wladimir, and arguably a ghost of Golota—forgotten this instance.

And one last thing—I literally said Vitali retired the 38 years old, career high fat Lewis. When Corrie stopped Wladimir in March, Lewis was negotiating with Vitali and seeking the Tyson rematch (because, surprise, an ancient Lewis approaching forty years of age was aiming for retirement money instead of dangerous, unmarketable fights; polls showed nobody wanted to see Byrd-Lewis IIRC and Wladimir could have possibly be the one feeling shorthanded.) What Lewis realized after the June fight is history.

 

And still salty about Louis (as if the discussion wasn't fantastically larger in scope.) Let it go brother. Selectively memorize the good points you've made and completely push out of your psyche the numerous undressed points and poorly contextualized information of yours.

 

And who cares about cans and journeymen being stopped fast (most of whom were stopped numerous times in their career anyway.) Bert Cooper was stopped in three rounds? Bert Cooper was 5'11 and quit on his stool after round two when Old Man George hit him with those brick-like body shots. Guess the inch and fat religion suddenly stops when it suits your point.

An eye test during the Vitali fight is all you need to see how fast, accurate, and powerful Sanders is. Counting seconds and minutes smh, as if Serge didn't already make the most educated, insightful and creative essay on Corrie Sanders while taking a Sunday afternoon dump.

 

GTFO here. You really have no clue. Sanders simply net put himself into position for bigger fights throughout his career. Mostly fought in South Africa against ham and eggers. The occasional fight in the US vs low ranked HW. Then lost when it counted with the sole exception of Wlad.

All you're running on is speculation with your own home cooked answers.

 

WHO refused a fight with Sanders when he tried to fight them?? Was Sanders even highly ranked then? You keep ducking this, likely because you blocked me like a coward afraid of an answer.

You think some guys not getting fights they want is always on the other guy?? Ortiz has been highly inactive himself. Big fan or Ortiz, but he doesn't do himself any favors sitting on the sideline waiting for the right fight.

 

Foreman was much fatter than Cooper and Sanders, how could I forgot the most important metric in boxing

 

I feel insecure, lol. So you can read my feelings, are you an empath? You simply don't like my opinion on this matter and prefer to believe I'm insecure over Lewis. Why on earth would I be insecure, he's one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, top 5 in most people rankings. He also had arguable the best resume at heavyweight during his era, with only Holyfield perhaps bettering him in that regard.

You've misunderstood what I was saying. At the time yes Wlad was the heir apparent according to many, though I personally had Vitali as the guy to take over, but I digress. What I was saying was that after the loss to Sanders much like Yoka he was an Olympian who was seen as a pretender and wasn't living up to the hype. Then of course he lost to Brewster and that only reconfirmed the fact he wasn't good enough and was not a top contender. That of course would change under Steward who turned him from a pretender to an ATG and in my opinion a top 10 heavyweight of all time.

Not true because Byrd was the mandatory he would of had to fight Byrd or be stripped. IBF had already given Lewis an exception to fight Tyson and were not going to allow another voluntary or for him to simply sit on the title as they eventually gave Lewis a 10 days to either agree terms with Byrd or be stripped.

Fact is Lewis/Byrd was seen as a mismatch and was never going to draw well. King wanted to match Byrd against Holyfield and wanted the title to market that fight and so paid the $1 mill and the car to secure that.

https://www.rte.ie/sport/boxing/2002/0421/163634-boxing/

Mavrovic was his mandatory a position Sanders never earned. Had Sanders been good enough to achieve mandatory status he might have gotten a shot but in the end he was never consistent enough to work his way up the rankings.

Briggs was lineal champion and had just beaten Foreman in a controversial fight. So he was far more well known to the public and had something Lewis wanted in the lineal title. Plus Briggs as we all know, knew how to promote a fight.

As I posted before 2 out of 3 opponents on Lewis list at the time were Botha and Sanders, both South African, but of a coincidence? No, because Lewis wanted to emulate his hero Ali and fight in Africa. Yes he fought Botha ahead of Sanders and yes because it was an easier fight, but also because Botha was simply more well known to the boxing public as he had fought Schultz, Moorer, Tyson and Briggs so he unlike Sanders was a known commodity to boxing fans. I suspect had Sanders beaten Rahman, the plan was to fight Sanders in South Africa as that would have no doubt created interest in the fight in Africa. But Sanders wasn't good enough to beat Rahman and blew his one legitimate opportunity to fight the champion.

As for why he never fought Sanders on the way up? Is Lewis meant to have fought everyone on the way up? He never fought Bert Cooper, Micheal Bentt, Herbie Hide etc did he duck those guys as well. Sanders fought in obscurity for most of his career, fighting in SA and so likely never had the promotional ties to even be on Lewis' teams radar. By the time Sanders was fighting regularly in the US, Lewis was already champion and Sanders was still fighting journeymen. Was Lewis supposed to fight some unknown fighter ahead of Tucker, Bruno, Morrison etc.

Fighters often think they can fight longer than they can. Yes he wanted to continue fighting while he hoped to get a lucrative rematch with Tyson. He was basically hanging around for a payday, hence why he picked such a soft touch in Kirk Johnson as a next opponent. But then that got scuppered and he decided to fight Vitali, which he had planned to fight later that year and he really didn't rate Vitali either, so again another easy fight while he waited for Tyson. But he was mistaken Vitali was no soft touch and that fight without a doubt hastened his retirement, but make no mistake even before that fight his fire had gone, the fact he even wanted a rematch with Tyson is proof of that.

Didn't rush to his defence at all, my first post didn't even mention Lewis. It also had nothing to do with defending Lewis at all. as you never even named Lewis. My position was he could not get better fights because he was losing key fights, namely the Rahman fight which if he had one may have secured him a fight with Lewis as Lewis had publicly named him as a possible opponent. But I'm repeating myself here, you will no doubt refuse to believe my words and prefer to spin your own narrative.

I don't think it's vague at all. Some fighters choose not to fight a fighter for one reason or another, sometimes it's legitimate like when Bradley didn't fight Khan, he had promotional issues and decided not to fight at all until that was resolved and was then given the Pac fight which of course is far more lucrative. Some called it a duck at the time but anyone impartial knows why that fight didn't happen.

Then you have incidents like Bowe signing a contract agreeing to fight Lewis if he got to jump the queue fight Evander first. He literally ducked Lewis despite a contractual obligation.

Sanders was never a mandatory, never even on most fight fans radar as a Lewis opponent or an opponent for any other champion for that matter. Not Holyfield, Moorer or Foreman or any other title holders. How can a champion or any top heavyweight duck an opponent that nobody is calling for him to fight? Sanders until the Wlad fight was a nobody on the scene like Ajagba now, yeah he's a KO artist, had some spectacular KO's but nobody is saying he should get a title shot or that any of the top heavyweights has to fight him. Christ please don't start spamming this forum 15 years from now about how Ajagba was ducked by Usyk and Fury, lol.

All fighters fight journeymen on the way up. Ortiz's break out performance was Jennings and unlike Sanders when he finally got that opportunity to fight a contender he won, while Sanders blew it vs Rahman. Though of course he finally did get his breakout fight when he beat Wlad but by then he was already 37.

As for Ortiz not securing fights. Well he wasn't a top amateur and so wasn't signed to a promoter with the leverage to secure quality opposition, much like Sanders. Plus he was his own worst enemy as he ended up getting sued by one promoter Greg Cohen for breach of contract when he signed with Goldenboy. That team up with Goldenboy led to him finally facing name opposition like Monte Barrett, the then undefeated Lateef Kayode and of course Jennings.

Ortiz then had to buy out his contract from Goldenboy, paying a reported $1 mill to Goldenboy because he refused to fight Ustinov in a mandated WBA eliminator. That went to purse bids twice with Ortiz twice refusing, probably because his new promoters lost the purse bids. Had he gone ahead with this eliminator and beaten Ustinov which was likely, he would have likely gotten a shot much sooner than he did. Quite frankly Ortiz's slow progress was down to his own doing, combination of not being good enough as an amateur to secure a good promoter and then getting into disputes with his promoters.

 

He never got the opportunities that countryman Botha and Coetzer did and we saw why when he knocked out WK at age 37.